Thursday, September 21, 2006

Raibeart

Raibeart is just my little contribution to the world of the Guernsey. I was "taught" by Beth Brown-Reinsel and Priscilla A. Gibson-Roberts/Deborah Robson. No, they don't know who the heck I am, but their books lead the way for me to enjoy this lovely sweater genre. If you want to learn Guernsey construction, get thee to their books, Knitting Ganseys & Knitting in the Old Way. I designed this one for my grandson, Robert Preston (of course, Raibeart is the Gaelic form of Robert). It went through a couple of versions, as do most of my designs. The first try had box stitch for the edging and garter for the definition ridge (it's the one in back). As most of you know, but I had to find out, garter stitch gives a heavier fabric than box stitch, so I switched the two in the placement of the sweater. Then I found that the box stitch did not provide enough "definition" between the monogram band and the combination of stitch patterns on the upper sweater, so I switched that to seed stitch. Alas, I was finally happy.

This one has sizes from 2 to adult small, or chest measurement 22-32". I made both samples with Cascade 220 Superwash. Great stuff! The pattern's ready to buy, and it has 20 pages of charts, code, you name it. Hopefully everything you need--a little Guernsey primer in its own.

Please excuse the terrible pictures, though. Anyone with any tips on photographing red, just speak up. I even tried letting Raibeart hang out with the Canary Bird Vine outside on the patio, as you can see at the top, but it wasn't much better.

Other stuff--boy, I did a bad thing this morning. When I first tried to sign in to blogger, the screen froze, so I pushed Cont-Alt-Del to get out, or so I thought.... I must have pushed the arrow key instead of the delete key, because my screen turned on its ear! Yep, it was sideways. It took me a while, and I even ran a virus scan (I'm clean, by the way :). I finally just tried Cont-Alt-Up Arrow, and bing, it righted itself. Boy, that was a big relief. Ever try to write email sideways? It's funny. You watch the cursor going up the screen instead of across. So just so you know, if that ever happens to you, now you know what to do. You're welcome.

"Feel the kilt swish around your knees!" I love it! I'll watch ANY movie that has someone with a Scottish accent in it. It's even been than a Gaelic accent, and I'm mostly Irish, so I hope I'm not offending the ancestors to say this!